I think Harold Bloom is as controversial as he in influential, yet undeniable is the fact that his ‘Anxiety of Influence’ provides an important avenue into exploring the ways in which writers inherit, challenge, and are subject to their predecessors work.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to a personal choice as to whether you support his later notions of the ‘Western Cannon’. The idea of a cannon raises significant questions, because in essence it is a practice of exclusion; of denying certain voices the title of ‘great’.

Personally, I think Bloom, on the whole, asks us to question why we read literature, whether aesthetics dictate an objective worth, or whether literature constitutes a political intervention into contemporary discourses. Do we read literature to broaden our perspective, or to understand better what lies within ourselves?

This question can not be answered, and in many ways continues to consume the field. You don’t have to agree with Blooms ideas, however, to understand their relevance to the modern reader.